In the context of imaging methods in the field of medicine, it is customary to extract tomographical image information of a patient, in order therefrom to obtain knowledge relating to physiological conditions of the patient under examination, and to make this knowledge available to a doctor for diagnostic purposes. In the case of CT angiography, for example, a 3D data record of a vascular system is generated after dosage of a contrast medium, thereby allowing a doctor to diagnose deformations of vessels such as stenoses or aneurysms. In principle, this diagnosis can be performed directly on the basis of the tomographical displays. For the purpose of simplification, the doctor can also be provided with e.g. a so-called CPR (Curved Planar Reformation) as an overview of a vessel of the vascular system, the CPR being based on the determination of the centerline in the image of the vessel. Using the CPR, the doctor can gain an initial overview of the state of the vessel concerned and e.g. determine the positions at which the vessel is to be measured. The measurement of a vessel on the basis of the CPR requires significantly less time than the direct assessment of the tomographical image data records.
During recent years, the quantity of data to be examined when making a diagnosis has grown continuously due to the improved temporal and spatial resolution of medical image recording systems. This should reduce the time that is required to produce the diagnosis and improve the quality of the diagnosis.